Stephen Hopkins (pilgrim)

Stephen Hopkins
illustration of the coat of arms of Hopkins
Hopkins coat of arms
Bornfl. 1579
Died1644(1644-00-00) (aged 64–65)
Occupation(s)Adventurer, clerk, merchant, tanner, tavernkeeper
Known forMayflower Compact signatory, Sea Venture shipwreck survivor
Spouse(s)Mary Kent (presumed), Elizabeth Fisher
Children10, including Oceanus Hopkins and Constance Hopkins (see Family)[1]

Stephen Hopkins (fl. 1579d. 1644)[2] was an English adventurer to the Virginia Colony and Plymouth Colony. Most notably, he was a passenger on the Mayflower in 1620, one of 41 signatories of the Mayflower Compact, and an assistant to the governor of Plymouth Colony through 1636.[3] He worked as a tanner and merchant and was recruited by the Company of Merchant Adventurers of London to provide the governance for the colony and to assist with the colony's ventures. He was the only Mayflower passenger with prior New World experience, having been shipwrecked in Bermuda in 1609 enroute to Jamestown, Virginia. Hopkins left Jamestown in 1614 and returned to England. Hopkins traveled to New England in 1620 and died there in 1644.

  1. ^ The story of New England, illustrated, being a narrative of the principal events from the arrival of the Pilgrims in 1620 and of the Puritans in 1624 to the present time Skelton, Edward Oliver, 1910.
  2. ^ Anderson, Robert Charles (2004). The Pilgrim Migration: Immigrants to Plymouth Colony, 1620-1633. Boston: New England Historic Genealogical Society. p. 273. ISBN 9780880821810.
  3. ^ George Ernest Bowman. The Mayflower Compact and its signers (Boston: Massachusetts Society of Mayflower Descendants, 1920). Photocopies of the 1622, 1646, and 1669 versions of the document.